Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
by dorian dark
Summary: 1981 Remus lives with his isolation and the mistrust of his friends, and finally, death and betrayal. Implied RLSB, RLLE and later RLOC. FINALLY COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

AN: this fic explores Remus' life and feelings during October-November 1981, and will be comprised of 5 chapters (only 1 of which remains unwritten). Because I am a sentimental soul, there's plenty of implied RLSB and RLLE, and chapters 3 and 4 will be RLOC (a bit too much for my liking, but I can't seem to control my pen these days…)

So, this first chapter covers the night the Potters go into hiding. If you've read my other fic 'Salut d'Amour', you'll know all about angsty, pessimistic Remus. Yup, there's more right here…this sort of corresponds with that other story, but is set years before (obviously).

Disclaimer: I own nowt. I've got my eyes on Sirius' flying bike, though… oh ye, the song is 'When I Was Young' by the Boomtown Rats, and guess what? I don't own that, either. I'm a bit confuzzled…if I'm not allowed to quote songs, TELL ME and I will take all other lyrics out of the other chapters. It would be a shame, but I've gotta obey the law, no?

Enjoy…

1

There are fireflies dancing already, wheeling above us.

I see their light, and the three flames of tall, smoky candles reflected in my wine glass, in James' glasses, in the hollow pupils of the man sitting opposite me, fiddling with his fork.

Lily is still pouring us drinks in the twilight, her white hands skating over bowls of glistening wet salad and empty plates littered with cocktail sticks and salmon bones. I feel…lethargic, and oddly detached.

I am afraid of goodbyes.

For there is an air of finality, floating beneath the giggling jokes and macho reminiscences, a dreadful, ominous weight in the eyes of my friends. It is almost November, and we are dying with the year. The farewells that hang between us are unspoken, when there are hours left to be grasped and lived and tasted.

The night is inky around us, so that I can barely see Sirius' features, and the silhouettes of houses and trees are gradually blending into the sky. And the moon is shaded with chilly clouds, smoky across its pitted surface.

But there are worse things in my life right now.

I suppose the conversation continues, we cowards who cannot bear to voice the sadness that rips us apart now. No, not cowards…foolish, deluded optimists.

One day, we will gather again like this, with tables piled with good food and drink, relishing the life that we have won for ourselves. I imagine – Harry will be five, six perhaps, playing on Uncle Peter's lap, and Lily will be sitting in James' lap, a hand on her swollen belly. And Sirius. And I. Who knows?

It could be…he and I. Or I could give up pretending I am trapped at Hogwarts, where love was just for fun, where paying the bills together, finding jobs…were fantasies for breathless, invincible youth. And instead, I may be sitting, playing with my salad, watching through narrowed eyes as he smiles at some vibrant girl. But at least we will be alive, and pulsing with warm blood. We will be victors, but it will not part us, we will remain Marauders and walk through a peaceful world with our heads held high.

_When I was young I would do a million things, dreaming up a thousand schemes, I would change the world each night  
_

I lose myself too often in mindless reveries, these days. I no longer dream of unknown lips on mine, or a world where, just once, I am better than James, or a situation where beautiful, multicoloured girls press their hands to my cheek. Now I dream of myself, unscathed, vanquisher when all these demons have passed away.

And I suppose, that if I die, I will be mourned. Moony, they will say. He who shadowed our games and mischief, who stood silently, tenderly, to let others take places he desired. And they will die too, I think.

Yes, I am wracked by guilt, realising that I would let them all die, I would throw them before Lord Voldemort (even Harry, who hours ago I cradled to me, and pretended was mine) just to see Sirius' face one more time. They underestimate me, my friends. I am a selfish, passionate bastard, torn apart by what is honourable, and what is painless, and what my shrivelled heart screams out to me.

Above and beyond the foreboding that tinges this final meeting, this summing-up of a decade of laughing, and joyous abandon, and…God help me, love, hovers something nastier, more sordid.

I know, with an acrid taste at the back of my throat, that I have been cast out once again, that, beloved though my patches and my easy smiles are, I am no one's best friend. Almost a commodity. And this has been forced before my opened eyes with unintentional brutality.

I cannot fool myself, I knew the first time I heard James mention the Fidelius Charm, I knew (though a painful knot tightened in my gullet) that I would never be the one to show my loyalty and friendship. I would not be the one to die with fire in my eyes, thankful to sacrifice for my friends' safety, and the son that I would wish to have.

But in all honesty, there was some relief. Hmm…I would only die for one person.

And he is vanishing away from me, retracting the hooks he slid into my flesh the first time he grasped my forearms tightly and pulled me towards him. I can feel the roots I thought were eternal ripping away, and there is no sugar to coat the pain – I crave some placebo, a salve to rescue me in my isolated distress.

But oddly, for the first time, I cannot see through the suave, sexual façade he so loves to erect, and it seems that once more his heart is private property.

He rises with James from the table, with Peter trotting predictably at their heels, and I am left alone with Lily. For once, this is little solace. He went without looking at me, without a sly wink or the pressing of a foot against my thigh.

She is clearing plates, her hair falling across her face and catching the amber light of the candles.

'It's okay, Remus. It's only for a while, a few years at most. You know…it's hard for him, too. Not that sentimental, is he, Sirius? It's killing him…you know that, don't you?'

She is always my rock, she is my balm when seas rage in my head, yet for once she fails to comfort me, for there is mistrust marring this last evening, and I do not know what I have done to have these cruel daggers aimed at me.

_I would tear the stars apart, confusion tore that pounding heart with certainty that things weren't right  
_

I am acting for all I am worth, as I help her stack plates, and collect empty bottles. My eyes catch hers from time to time, and she blushes like autumn. I have not made her blush for years.

I used to make her heart sing, she told me once.

But there are teddies and plastic figures littered around the house, and smiling wedding photos, and letters with _Mr and Mrs J Potter_ written on them. She has found someone else to make her their angel. And so have I, though his back is turned, coldly.

Harry is asleep in an old-fashioned wicker basket when we stagger into the house under the weight of huge glass bowls and trifle dishes. We lean over him together, with his soft, misty eyelashes and curled fingers. Our heads are so close together, I can feel her breath shaking the lace around his cradle, and with the silence of the night around me, and nothing else to do in this hideous limbo, I imagine we are together.

There were times, not so long ago, when I could dream idle thoughts without having to anchor myself in the truth. It could have been…if not for my reprehensibly idiocy. My shyness, my tendency to hide my youthful blushes behind a book, shielding myself with shaky knowledge, with long-dead poets and wizards who faced dragons and carried off fainting girls.

I think my friends would have preferred me to be a book. A thick, leather-bound tome beckoning readers with its faux-gold clasp. The pages would be spotted prematurely with damp and mildew, but the cramped writing would be sarcastic, witty, occasionally comforting. I would be a guide to those without a light.

But in my present form, I am worthless.

_I'd read all that student stuff, read it till I'd had enough, then making up my own mind - think it, feel it  
_

There is a charge between us, but it is dying, inevitably, for our rationality reminds us that this is our last night.

Wine glasses chink in the kitchen, and Lily glances at me, no doubt seeing the disappointment and solitude flit across my papery face as I look down again at Harry. And I want to make them hurt, even though it was sweet bliss to spend brief moments of domestication with a woman I never dared quite hard enough to love.

So I stride through to the kitchen, all guns cocked to blaze a volley at those who are casting me out. They stop talking, abruptly, with shifty, anxious glances.

And again the feeling washes over me that I have done some great wrong, some evil that predates all of our memories and stories together.

And so it ends.

It is time to go home now, to a cold, narrow, empty bed, and pour cups of coffee that leave rings on stacks of dependable books. I will lie in bed until they return for me, watching the sun rise and fall while dust gathers on my photographs and cobwebs fracture the window. I will live, without them all, but I know it will be less than existence. I face these years of warfare, I face vicious battles with men I knew at school, and once again, for the first time since I was eleven, I am alone.

I throw my arms fiercely around their necks, one by one, hoping the tears in my eyes show that I love them and condemn them for barring me in this most important of decisions. I suppose it hurts all the more because Peter, little, weak Peter, is their confidant. And not me, for whom they did so much. I would listen to them, I would wish them well on their descent into secrecy.

I cannot look Sirius in the eyes as his arms stroke my back lightly.

By the front door, while I hear the three of them resume their conversation as though I am no one, Lily catches my hand and kisses it. As her eyes connect with mine, I see that she too is fighting back a flood of tears, for all those she is hiding herself from after tonight.

It is goodbye, forever or for only years that will seem endless while I live them without them…

The night is black now, and frosty around my ears as I walk home to traipse the bright stairs. I am not ashamed to admit I am crying.

But why, I cannot explain.

There are too many things lost tonight for me to pick apart my feelings with any rationale.

_I believed I'd never die, when I was young_

AN: hands up who wants more? Just as a lil' summary, the next chapters will cover Sirius' visit to Remus' flat that same evening (no fluff 'n' smut AT ALL), Remus' way of avoiding his loneliness (ie the OC), Dumbledore's news, and Remus' rather Iliadic quest for vengeance. So there you go, if that's whetted your appetite, do drop me a line. And I will send you flapjacks.

Also, do you think the whole Sirius/Remus thing was a bit much? I don't know if I meant it to be so unsubtle. Ah well…I must go where my psycho loony Muse takes me. 'Till next time (I hope), DD xxx


	2. Chapter 2

AN: So, this is especially for rumorandsigh, who is a legend mwah

I hope all of you who read chapter 1 weren't put off by super-pessimist Remus…not that he cheers up much AT ALL in this next section, in which Sirius comes to bid a somewhat bitter (and not at all fluffy) farewell. Man, PoA is SO depressing…can you imagine believing in the betrayal and duplicity of your best friend for twelve years! Man… anyhoo…I wish you all enjoyment in reading this…the other 3 chapters are written, so excluding computer malfunction, I shouldn't be too slow in posting the rest (provided you want it).

Disclaimer: let me just check….nope. Not mine. Neither is 'Thick As Thieves' by the Jam, who rock more than words can say. Incidentally, all of these songs vaguely relate to the period, so if some are a bit obscure, sorry…

Alors, on commence…

2

Light from far-off stars is reflecting on oily puddles, and drifts of dead, soggy, skeletal leaves darken the pavements. Death and decay in all around I see, I think cynically. Everything is dying…and of course I am too weak to stop myself from plummeting, too.

Head down, hands plunged into warm pockets, a vicious wind whipping through my wispy hair and numbing my nose and eyelids. But I would chill to the spongy marrow of my bones even in mid-August, with the dog-day heat of summer pressing against me. And in truth, it would be a welcome exit to float away, anaesthetized through the bitter cold.

Look, I am losing my hold on my mask. I have managed – a brief glance at my watch – about twenty three minutes without them, before my composure breaks and shows its battered state in the feet that kick at cans, and the tears that leave warm tracks down my chin.

I am almost at my flat, my weak hands, feeling as though they are someone else's, are fumbling for my keys.

It is my foolish sentimentality that makes me pause, and do stupid things like look at the keys in the orange light of a street lamp.

The fob is a single red panel of leather, with 'I love Iceland' stamped in gold, gold that is fading now that I have caressed it so often. He bought one for each of us, and some odd, spicy biscuits, and laughed with us that he hated Iceland, and hated his family. And the next year, he moved out.

It was then, I suppose, that I should have wavered. I should have thrown away my reticence and my doubts and my fear of alienating James and opened my door to him. If not as a lover, because I could never be a glam-rock queen with two fingers stuck up at the world, then as a dear, trusted friend.

But times change, and I face years alone now. And the contemplation of even one night (this night that is laughing at me now) is enough to make me sob audibly, for my bed is so cold, and my cupboard is so sparsely populated with one cup and one plate, and there is only one toothbrush by my sink. If it is not Sirius, then who?

_Times were so tough, but not as tough as they are now, we were so close and nothing came between us - and the world - no personal situations_

A roaring fills my ears, but it is as music to me.

I am stricken, a rabbit, with white white hot light washing my face, and catching individual strands of hair and making my eyes redder than, in reality, they are, as he draws up to the kerb.

I don't think I ever saw anything as beautiful, as alive, as Sirius Black dismounting from that machine for the first time, clad in thick leather, pulling off his helmet so his hair fell in random squiggles all across his eyes, and he smiled with such a ferocity that I could not help but feel a piece of my heart disappear.

I have not sated my appetite for that image, and as he repeats it before me now, with the mud from the streets splashed up his black thighs, I feel a great pang that circumstances must always change, contexts must always twist themselves into enemies.

And yet…his smile is missing.

I cannot tell if he is splintering into pieces inside, just like me. Or whether he really – as I surmised this evening with tears pricking at the lining of my skull – does not care anymore, and wants only to mock poor, abandoned, sensitive Moony. Well, I shall be as impassive and cold as the satellite that governs my rage.

'What are you doing here, Sirius?...'

His boots scuff dead leaves – they pervade every corner of my monochrome world.

'Didn't think much of your goodbye.'

'It _is _goodbye, then?'

For a moment his eyes seem to cast down and try to shield the same sadness I am suppressing. But I think it is a trick of the light.

'Yeah…What else?'

Oh God, I am failing, I am going to lose control here, on the pavement, in front of my greatest, my oldest friend, who I will never be ready to let go. I can almost hear his giggles with James, and wine glasses chinking together while I do the washing up, and all the days I spent in the library instead of taunting lesser mortals alongside them come back to prod me in the side.

'You don't trust me, do you?'

He is very close to me, somehow. His boots are nearly on my worn trainers. I am struck by how much greater he is than me…we are around the same height, but I can never command the same pulsing aura as he. Another reason to hate and envy him, and to love him and fall sobbing into tortured dreams at the thought of losing his respect.

And with a flash I remember the only time I was better than him.

_  
Thick as thieves us, we'd stick together for all time, and we meant it but it turns out just for a while, we stole the friendship that bound us together_

I couldn't have cared less whether I had killed Severus, or not. Once the initial numbing fear that Sirius might be expelled had passed, I revelled in being righteous…I played the martyr, the betrayed friend with every sneaky fibre of my being.

I remember the days of silence, and guilt, and resolve to stick, for once, to morals and principles. I held on so fast to Dumbledore's words and kindness when I came to Hogwarts, and I recalled (though it hurt like a burning match held against the skin) all the occasions that I was alone, shunned by my Marauders. The cruel teasing, meant in jest, but cutting to the quick. That way, it was easier to feel superior while he wheedled and pleaded and _begged_ to be my friend again.

I confess, I enjoyed the feeling. I knew it would not last long.

'It doesn't have to be about trust, does it? There'll be time for discussion and talk…and stuff after the war, won't there, won't there, Moony? Remus?'

I do not understand the look in his eyes right now. As though there is some blindingly obvious second meaning to his words. I was always crap at reading Sirius.

'Wh-what are you saying, Sirius?'

'I don't know any more…it can't end like this…like we…like strangers and criminals, Moony…'

He never said a truer word. But he is insinuating something I cannot touch.

There were times, when James was somewhere else, or with Lily, or too insensitive, that I would be the ultimate in confidantes. It would be a foolishly rose-tinted falsehood to say that we told each other everything, for I hid so many dirty little secrets away in dusty corners of my mind (some that have been there so long that I have almost forgotten they ever existed). But nevertheless, I was an ear for all his outpourings.

He told me in such minute detail of his first kiss that I could almost believe (so reluctantly, being only a 2nd year) I was Ellen, feeling my head tilting to one side while he ran his tongue over my lips.

Being privy to such intimate confessions…it hurts now that he will not even look me in the eye. I try so hard to pretend that I do not give a fig for his stupid Fidelius Charm, that it is immaterial that he has not shared his fears and doubts.

But I would be happy for him even to gloat over me, that I have never been, nor will ever be, the Chosen One. The one who is knit into James and Lily's marriage, who beams from every picture, who shares each step so willingly.

I would welcome even words of typical arrogance, just to convince me that I am not dreaming, that he really is going away from me for noble reasons.

He will talk to _Peter_, oh yes, that scrawny little leftover who was never treated to such reminiscences. Why begin now? Have I not proved my trustworthiness? Whatever…it is too much effort…

'Everything will be alright. We are the good guys, remember…'

_Like a perfect stranger - you came into my life, then like the perfect lone ranger - you rode away - rode away, rode away - rode away_

The smile is back – but I can see gaps appearing in it, horrid voids that call to me.

'Yes. We are, aren't we? Merlin, let's hope it stays that way.'

I can almost hear blackboards screeching, flocks of crows rising screaming before the moon - there is an ominous drumbeat just out of earshot, I am certain. Suddenly he is scaring me, I wish he had remained with his beloved James and his stupid godson, and left me in peace, and not come to stand and taunt me with lingering, hidden messages.

And indeed, he is nearly gone.

I feel his arms around me just once more, and though it is full of fire, his embrace already seems like a ghost. I swear he whispers something hotly and passionately in my ear – a hiss of something loving or hating, I cannot tell. His lips are mixed with my hair, and it is a haphazard, spontaneous…bitter way to end this most wonderful of friendships.

But I must realise now, that such things are often one-sided. Unrequited, even in the platonic.

I tear away from him, and I see – guilt? Disgust? Despair…so many melodramatic emotions – in his hands fallen at his sides, limply.

I fumble at the door…

'You still got that old thing?' he indicates the Iceland keyring.

'Ye. I have, actually.'

I can trust myself no longer. I run up the stairs, and hear the door swing back. The flat is dark, but blue, orange, white lights flood in through the open curtains, casting the usual shadows.

I pull aside the net blind, and see him put on his helmet slowly and ride away, red lights blazing through the night. He does not once look up at my window, or run his hand through his hair. He simply leaves.

And…though it wounds me to think it…it is probably for the best.

There are pictures on my windowsill, framed, dancing images. I am a fool to let my eyes wander over them, hearing nothing but the roar of a far-off motorway and my own hitching breath.

With each moving image…I cannot put words to the stinging that grabs the bridge of my nose, spilling yet more tears. They each stab me, with their nonchalant, oblivious smiles.

I thought it would be easy…I thought there would be only one face staring clearly at me, obscuring the others who once posed for my camera.

But it hurts to look at_ any_ reminder of what tonight ripped away from me.

It will not come back to me.

_No it wasn't enough - and we've gone and spoiled everything, now we're no longer as thick as thieves_

__

AN: hmmm, I was hoping to make more out of Sirius believing Remus was the traitor (that one line in PoA about that really gets me)…but it didn't seem to manifest itself. Ah well, at least you know what my intentions were. I hope you enjoyed it, come back soon for some non-MarySue RLOC. And completely gratuitous Bob Dylan lyrics….hard to beat, really : )


	3. Chapter 3

AN: it continues…shoot me down if this becomes at all MarySue…I don't _think_ I am guilty of such a heinous crime, but then I'm a poor judge. Guess what? Remus is still depressed and self-loathing. But we love him…

Disclaimer: yaddayadda I am not worthy even to mention the name of she who crafted these characters (apart from my own dear OC, yay!) and ideas. And Bob Dylan, of course, don't own him, his songs or his harmonica, either.

3

I am still missing them already, hating myself for causing suspicion, hating them for abandoning me so unfairly, the next day, when I return home from a walk through the park. The pale white light of the streetlamps glowed gently in the blue night and made the stark black branches of dripping trees soft. Round and round the glossy lake I walked, hearing dark things move in the rustling reeds, watching smoky clouds chase across the crescent moon.

And I watched as the inky sky streaked itself with rosy light and caught the twigs and remaining leaves in its grey sunlight. I felt no tiredness, walking through the night and morning, through the city with litter blown in giddy circles around my feet.

The streets are empty, and cars speed past only very infrequently. But the girl across the hall is awake, is struggling with piles of books, when I climb the stairs, feeling the smell of urine and the flickering neon strip light mar my wonderfully melancholy thoughts.

And although it is against my better judgement, although I have no appearances any longer to maintain, I pretend that I am back in the world, where I am a gentleman.

'May I help you?'

I may imagine the blush that flits across her face, layered upon the redness of exertion. I may fabricate the downcast, shy eyes and hopeful hesitance in her 'y-yes…thank you' to make myself feel good about myself. It may be courtesy that invites me in for a coffee, cold that causes her hand to tremble when she hands me a chipped mug.

But for once, even if her pale blond hair and her icy eyes do little for me when _Lily _is so fiery and so nearly tangible in my dreams, I feel a little start of pleasure to think that, at twenty-three, I may not be entirely burnt out.

And I imagine that it would be an…easy way out to involve myself in another world, where there exist only Chinese takeaways and discarded clothes and blandly read poetry and flowers that die. And there would be no war, with…Freya. Freya Hunt.

But I would be the worst kind of person to immerse myself in this when I seek only distraction and escape. She is sitting hunched on a kitchen chair, far away from me; her hands clenched tightly together, almost wringing with cold or nerves. Her face has faded to grey once more, and her blue eyes are darting, darting, flickering over anything but me. I could break her. It seems one touch of my hand would shatter her.

She is watching me slowly as I cross the landing to my own flat, rephrasing her tumbling words as I left… 'I – thank you, th - thank you, I – have a…er…nice day, um, Remus.'

And unintentionally, I give little back. Little thanks for a sudden flash of feeling – I have not felt alive since I heard Sirius' motorbike growl into life on the street below, and pulled back the curtain to watch him speed away from me. Funny then, that a Muggle with so little to say and an aversion to eye contact, is offering me (obliviously, I think) some form of human comfort.

And all I can do is thank her dumbly for the coffee and skulk back to my flat and damn myself for being a ridiculous, cursèd fool. It is stupid to think of this Freya in any context…when my walls are covered in moving posters of the Cardiff Magpies, my few shirts are currently being ironed and folded by invisible hands, and the floor is littered with cuttings…doom laden headlines from the _Daily Prophet_.

Yes, I hesitate to meddle with another world.

For I am a monster, this much is true, but I am captivated by the crescent sweep of her eyelashes across her face as she avoids my eyes, and the twitch of her hand as she brushes her wispy hair away.

I suppose, as is the norm in my damned life, that I am lost now.

And I am feral, and I have no Padfoot to restrain me. Somehow, with an unnamed throbbing pain, I realise that, even if the world reverts to right, if the sun deigns to weakly rear its head, he will not be there to restrain me, to break my fall, ever again.

It is moments like this, with hot tears slipping silently down my face, that I feel truly old. As though a tunnel stretches away from me, and a silhouette stands at the end of all the darkness – and the shape shifts: Lily, Sirius, myself. I never reach it, though I run and run and stretch out despairing hands.

It turns, and blue eyes glitter in the darkness.

And so it is that, against my better judgement, knowing that hearts will break, I let myself meet her again and again…coincidentally, I tell myself. There are a few days, two at most, during which I pretend that it is not her stuttered welcome and Muggle clothes that make living isolated from everything I thought I knew seem bearable.

But they are soon over, and when she offers me another coffee, her fervent smile flashing, cocooned in her chunky scarf and sloping beret, it is so easy to smile back – not a smile that would charm the world, like Sirius', but a smile nonetheless, riddled as it is with sincerity and meaning – and agree eagerly.

Her flat (for I know, even when I am charmed and cursed into insanity without my friends, but bewitched by a girl who reads Homer for fun, that I must never let her set foot in my own impersonal home) is warm and inviting.

I try to look as though I have seen…televisions before, as though it is nothing new to see her painstakingly boiling water in a silver vessel attached to the wall and measuring out milk.

For the most part, I am happy to watch her little fingers pick bits of fluff from the furry brown cushions, and flick them towards a waxy cheese-plant, rather than try to engage with talk of something called 'Eastenders' and a man named Bob Dylan.

She is warming me, not only through her endearing tentativeness and her fragrant coffee, but because she never reminds me of the isolation I feel when I am mouldering across the corridor.

When I sit alone at night, forsaking my bed for a more romantic pose silhouetted in blue against the finger-smeared window, I feel the solitude press against my back and hiss maliciously in my ear.

And here, listening to breathy harmonica Muggle music, sharing glances that increase in intensity with each flickering, fleeting look, I can silence the demons that the others have left me floundering with.

_Go lightly from the ledge, babe, go lightly on the ground, I'm not the one you want, babe  
I will only let you down_

I want to feel Sirius here beside me, I want to vent the fury I have never voiced upon him now, for turning me into something I hoped never to become. I am a manipulative, selfish, less than human being drawing myself ever closer to this Freya who is in love with me, though she knows _nothing, _nothing at all.

I stare at my congealing coffee as I remember all those times I could have said a word and stopped him in his foolish antics.

But no, spineless Moony, relying on his friends for everything, and now that they are gone away I find myself so helpless that I turn to a stammering Muggle girl who puts too much sugar in coffee even for my taste to drag me away from Hades. _  
_

_You say you're lookin' for someone who will promise never to part; someone to close his eyes for you, someone to close his heart  
_

Night is falling.

I can see street lights fuzzed through condensation on the glass, orange orbs seeming so unreal outside the neon lights of her kitchen. I am sat on a stool, watching her pull down books and photo albums and press them on me, not caring that I offer no opinions, no memories of my own.

When she looks at me, with the edges of her irises almost purple, I am suddenly released from whatever chains held me fast before, and I am racing barefoot down my tunnel, panting for breath, crawling into her loving arms.

_Someone who will die for you an' more, but it ain't me, babe, no, no, no, it ain't me babe, it ain't me you're lookin' for, babe_

We are both standing silently, so close, and I kiss her forehead reverently, and her trembling eyelids, and finally her chapped lips.

I know, with my blackened heart, I do not deserve such tenderness.

I have never been so needed. Girls I have known, kisses that have smashed and lunged into my face and left me dazed and disappointed.

Lily kissed me, once.

It was not perfect, tainted as it was by guilt. And it lasted such a brief second, and I could feel the lid of the piano dig into my spine and her fingers brush my face sadly as she pulled away.

I was drunk, when Sirius and I ended up with our lips sloppily exploring each others' for the first time. I cannot remember what I felt. I do not wish to, when Freya's warm body is pressing against mine, and her eyes are closed peacefully, and her breath is sighing in…relief. Certainly the others never needed me.

But I get the feeling that pulling away now, returning into my magical shell, would flash an unbearable look of hurt across that fragile face.

I will not inflict that on her.

Not until the last moment.

_It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe  
_

AN: taddaaaa! One more chapter in the terrible answer to the question 'why is Remus' life so rubbish?' Although it's not ALL bad…anyhoo, the next chapter promises further heartache etc ad infinitum. Come back for more, ok? Until soony…dd xx


	4. Chapter 4

AN: read, enjoy and drop me a line if you feel so inclined.

Disclaimer: yep, you guessed it, I stole it all (apart from Freya)…I stole Blondie's 'Heart of Glass', too. Merlin forgive me…

4

She drifts away into a beautiful sleep, with her hand resting delicately on my chest, almost hesitantly, as though she does not feel she has the right to touch me – although she knows me better than almost any other (but he is busy keeping secrets, he has moved on to bigger and better things than making wretched Remus Lupin howl).

Her insecurity is something touching. I see myself in her, in the sheets held up to her chin to preserve, futilely, her modesty, in the biting of her lip to prevent any excessive whimpering.

'I could stay like this forever…'

I cannot help but agree with the words I barely catch as she slips into comforting dreams in which I am not a disappointment and not an enigma waiting to vanish. I feel…floaty…as though there is nothing before or after this. I touch the hand curled on my torso, thinking Muggle thoughts of Alpha and Omega.

Because she makes me forget.

With her hands cupping my face, pulling at the ends of my hair, her breath hitching and making my heart leap too, I cannot help but think of her, and how she represents a naivety untainted by the Dark Lord, or by green death.

_Once I had a love and it was a gas, soon turned out I had a heart of glass. Seemed like the real thing only to find, much mistrust, love's gone behind_

It is all I can do to stop myself from sobbing, to think that her wish will be left unrequited. At most, I will stay like this for another three hours before I must report to Professor Dumbledore and risk my life and my dignity to save people I no longer care for. Maybe, if I keep my wits about me, I will return for nights and nights of forever, conveniently visiting my mother every 28th day, but I know that we will not lie side by side in harmony and peace as in Muggle churches with war still raging invisibly beyond the veil.

I want that mediaeval love, but it is taunting me with its hopelessness. I would be content never to talk, never to cook for her or exchange loving gifts, or bend on my creaking knee, or hold her hand through waves of bloody pain. I would forsake these and more only for the chance to lie here beside her forever, feeling needed and loved.

And I am preparing for it.

But there is noise outside, on the landing. A sharp crack, a musical swish of velvet cloak, and my mind begins to awake from wasted dreams. The Dark Lord, chasing the spares, the remnants. I wonder if Peter is already dead, slaughtered because James and Sirius, the real prizes, are hidden away from those who hate them, and those who crave their presence.

I confess I am honoured, hearing a voice that I do not recognise whisper 'Alohomora' and feeling the presence of another in the flat, that I am also deemed dangerous enough, at my age, to be extinguished.

And I suppose I will die happy, and young, and I will never have to face Freya and tell her 'goodbye, my lover.' I will not be forced to see a flash of confused, suppressed hurt taint her face as I make my graceful exit from her life.

_Once I had a love and it was divine, soon found out I was losing my mind. It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind, much mistrust, love's gone behind_

The figure is in the room now, and I squeeze her sleeping hand gently, hoping, praying to a Muggle god that she may be left lying there, with her quiet breath lifting a wisp of hair across her mouth rhythmically. I suppose I regret, if she too is to blaze out in green light, that I am the monster that led her unwittingly to her death, but it is a comfort to know that I will not die alone. It is almost as though we have spent our lives together and are now ready to end them together, too. A night is as good as a lifetime.

A Muggle car passes on the street outside, and two white floodlights scan the room through a chink in the curtains. The searching beams hurt my eyes, and bathe her thin body beneath the sheet in white, and she is a marble, cold statue on the Parthenon, lounging immortally.

And it throws shadows everywhere, and on the long white beard of the man creeping closer, and his half-moon spectacles, and the silver tear trickling into his moustache.

And once again, my fantasies of martyrdom and an eternity with Freya are shattered. For Albus Dumbledore is in my room (_my room_ - funny how I am trying desperately to blend myself into her life, when I know I am being wrenched away), crying, pulling me back into a world of fear and danger.

He puts his finger to his lips, and beckons to me, and even though he can only be here with news to make my heart chill and my world implode, I am ashamed of something as trivial as standing naked before my old headmaster.

Nevertheless I stand before him briefly, with the navy pall of night accentuating the hollows and dimples in my flesh, and a look like pity floods his face.

Once clothed, I slink out of the room behind him, with a brief glance at Freya, who is still lying as though dead. She looks very alone, with one bare shoulder rising above the sheet.

_Lost inside adorable illusion and I cannot hide - I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside_

We are in my flat in a matter of seconds, and I feel the smell of abandonment pervade my skin. Already it is a foreign place for me. There is nothing human about this geometric set of walls. Even my possessions seem to belong to someone else, someone with cares. But cares are returning to stab me in the back, now.

'I had forgotten…how _young _you are, Remus,' the Headmaster says slowly and sadly. I wonder if this is a reproach for forgetting my friends and tumbling into passion with a Muggle I happen to encounter, with no regard for anyone but myself.

But somehow, the weight in his voice, and the tears still falling from his red eyes, spell something worse than my reprehensible actions. And I already know, I can feel my life inverting before he rubs his forehead, removes his glasses and speaks.

'I have to tell you, Remus…I have to tell you that…Lord Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow last night.'

Yes, it is morning now, I suppose. Already my days are falling about me, and this is the first that I must face without them. Is my breath bated? I hardly care. It seems too much effort to say anything; I let him proceed, the words washing around me like acid.

'I think you must guess, Remus. They are both dead…there was nothing to be done. I – I cannot tell you how…sorry I am.'

And oddly, shivering in my thin shirt, with the scent of her perfume still pungent in my hair, I care little for James, nor even for _Lily_, even though my life seems to be defined by my love for her. I cannot bring myself to contemplate the finality of death.

No, no, instead I feel a dull, pounding ache in my teeth and a tremble in my knees as I think of what these strangely impersonal murders mean for me – for the whispered nothings I truly, truly meant and would have honoured to the grave…which now I know were answered by _lies._

Oh, God it hurts.

Now I know what Julius Caesar felt in his dying moment, looking into the eyes of a friend. And he was more than a friend to me, and as I die inside (as I fade into some limbo existence) I can see into his eyes too. The one constant, the one man I have always leaned on, has black fire at his soul, and although I know it is selfish to think that he has betrayed me rather than the Potters, I still damn him and his treacherous heart on my behalf.

How odd, that only a brief span of days could drive me, steady, dependable Remus Lupin, to such a violent diversity of emotions. Emotions I have scorned and curbed throughout my life are bubbling up in threatening clouds now…lust, unbearable solitude and melancholy, a taste for the blood of this Judas.

I suppose there must be hints of my inner torment surfacing, marring my love-softened eyes. Dumbledore is still looking at me, as though I am dying.

I am so…different now. The days of studying in the library, of surging Quidditch crowds, of moonlit chases through the castle grounds, are all passed away. Now, to the disappointment of Dumbledore, I am a deadened twenty-three year old with things pulling me apart painfully. I would prefer, and I do not suppose for a minute that I am ashamed, to crawl back into bed and feel Freya turn to press herself subconsciously against my body.

But there are things I need to do.

Because Sirius is wielding a giant knife, is plunging it mercilessly, repeatedly into the threadbare tapestry of my life, and if there is any chance that I might sneak back into the picture of domestication I have painted for myself, I must restore the balance.

I am a coward.

I never had the courage to tell my best friends what I am. I never steeled myself to capture Lily for my own, and was forced to watch James slide under her veneer, I was never brave enough to ask Sirius to live with me…

There are words left unsaid, and they haunt me now. They tease me with what I could have become, and mar my stupid, immodest picture of myself.

And for myself, if for no one else (if not even for Lily and James, and Peter dead somewhere by his friend's hand, and Freya, her body chilled without me there beside her) I must be going now.

I am almost out of the door when the Headmaster quietly speaks.

'What about Freya?'

And nothing has changed, in reality. He is still the same great man, who knows everything and sees the desperate intent in me. I do not question how he knows her name, how he knows that I am making my way into the night with murder in mind. But I question why he wants me to become such a man with nothing but myself (a poor prize, by anyone's standards) to fight for.

Yet, he is right. I cannot leave her sleeping while I hunt down my best friend – my lover – and duel until he is dead and mutilated in the dirt at my feet, then return and slip into my Muggle façade and live with her forever and a day.

Dumbledore is bringing me back to earth, and I am steeling myself, wrapping my trembling hand around my wand, bending over her lovely face. And there was so much hope last night, and it is _so_ unfair that it has vanished, that it is forgotten now in the face of human mortality.

And for this alone I will kill him, for taking away my hope and trust in anything in this wretched, sordid world.

A kiss, above her eye socket.

And a word, a single quavering, hateful word that makes my eyes pulse with loathing.

'Obliviate.'

_We could have made it cruising, yeah, riding high on love's true bluish light_

AN: Raaaa…why is it that I cannot write a single happy word! I mean, I just watched an hour of ER, munching on my mum's cookies…what's not to love? Ah well, we know it all comes right in the 6th book…until JKR decides to kill dear old Remus (or even Tonks)…life sucks. I wonder what could possibly cheer me up….ah yes, reviews, no? I love 'em almost as much as Kovac. Just one more installment left, I hope you've enjoyed it :) dd xx


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not the characters, not the Carpenters' 'Solitaire'… I don't even own my own time…I really should be writing about whether Clytaemnestra acts more like a man than a woman in 'Agamemnon'. But guess what? I'm not. So life goes.

AN: ok, this is it now, for all those hordes and hordes of people who have been flocking eagerly to their computers to read the latest instalment. NOT. So, ok, I admit this hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire, if the reviews are anything to go by….but who cares, I liked writing it, and it was niggling me that I hadn't finished it. Alors…voila. And yes, you guessed right, the angst doesn't let up. Bit draining for reader and writer, methinks. Maybe a nice fluffy one-shot next time…

5

And I am gone, from her flat, from her life and from her heart. So you see, I am resorting to clichéd, self-indulgent thoughts to keep my sanity from breaking from its flimsy anchor.

I am dressed in a shirt that lay rumpled on the floor most of the night, and a pair of trousers with rents on the knees, and the November wind is cutting through me like the hiss of a bullet or a hex (see how I am trying desperately to hold onto my quasi-Muggle self?), but I relish its icy passage down my throat. It feels in tune with the dread in my stomach.

I can only live for tonight…I may only live tonight, gods know I can do little malice with my wand, which Dumbledore somehow, for some reason, pressed into my hand as I fled. After tonight I must face facts too dark and sombre to name, and I am a coward.

I will not face them now. I must bury them.

But in some respects, I am Hector, I am Orestes, I am so bloated with courage that I cannot help but fly like silence through the streets in search of bloody vengeance.

I would give it all, all the wretched remnants of my life, and if I were a millionaire I would hand over my little golden key, to see his blood spill syrupy across some deserted alley, and know that it was by my hand.

Yes, there are times when I wish I were a Muggle.

A night that makes me choke to recall it, twisted in a perfect pose of love, with no magic dwarfing our own tentative efforts to become something more than ordinary.

_There was a man, a lonely man, who lost his love through his indifference - A heart that cared, that went unshared until it died within his silence  
_

Again I am running through a tunnel, seeing orange lights stream past me on the high street, as I careen carelessly on my murderous way. There are huge, cold hands clutching at my strings and making me dance, a tiny helpless marionette on a bare, harshly lit stage, guiding me gently on through a neighbourhood I barely know, but pulling my feet one after another, some twisted destiny.

And because I am myself, because I prefer always to stand back and be devoured by emotion rather than leap in and play the shining hero, I often pause and lean on my knees and catch my hitching breath, and let tears course unchecked down my face with frightening speed and fall splashing on the gum-spotted pavement.

I run on. The rushing wind, a roaring accompaniment, dries the tears crustily on my cheeks, and stripes the dirt that blights the face so many have called 'beautiful'. So many…mathematicians, help me now, do two people constitute many? I suppose, had I been allowed to freeze time in that tiny little flat, and pad around in my shirt and socks, and share a Cup-A-Soup (chicken and noodle) wrapped in a duvet, I might have heard those words again. I could have notched another tally on my mis-placed self-esteem.

But no. Bitterly I recall that I am barred forever from the lives of poor, unsuspecting, wonderful Muggle girls with white-blonde hair and delicate hands.

This is what spurs me on, the shadows of touches long-gone but not forgotten, left to linger hauntingly in a closed box. A box of successes and elations, though the bottom is barely covered, and the contents are coated in dust.

And even he whose touches are consigned to this meagre treasure trove, he has roared out of my life on that monstrous machine, and committed unimaginable treachery.

The hours that I spend doing God knows what on the streets of this ghost town, running, crying, contemplating, do little to diminish my lust.

I may be dull, dreary, dependable, but my passion scares me sometimes. My trembling hand clenched by my side to stop myself grabbing at Lily in her wedding dress. A burning blush watching Sirius struggle into a sequined costume for that pantomime, closed eyes to deny myself such illicit sights.

And now, a thumping in my spine, echoing the slap of my shoes on paving stones, a war drum that snatches my free will away and drags me through the night.

_A little hope goes up in smoke, just how it goes, goes without saying - There was a man, a lonely man, who would command the hand he's playing  
_

Time passes in near perfect idleness, repetition. There is little originality about my misery and frenzy.

It is by now about 8.45, the height of what I believe is called the 'rush hour'…a boiling pot of cars and tempers and belching exhausts and shrieking school children.

The side streets I am blindly still trailing along, a steady plod rather than my hasty, erratic running, become busier and families pour out of terraced houses. Lunchboxes are thrust into little jammy hands, and mothers are lovingly flustered as they load into huge people carriers and straighten ties, separate scrapping children.

Through the night, it has become starkly real to me that I am running for myself…I may immortalise myself in gold with talk of Freya, and of James and Lily, but in truth my façade is backed with nettles that remind me that I am still the same selfish being claiming things around me without a thought for others.

But these wonderfully domesticated scenes remind me of days on the lawn, playing with Harry, watching James and Lily live in comfortable intimacy.

So, I am running for them, too, and for Harry, wherever they are now.

But kissing couples on slate doorsteps recall emotions, memories that are entirely personal to me. I cannot voice names, particulars.

But without this hideous dawn, I might too be in such a situation with some faceless lover…chances are all shot down.

_And solitaire's the only game in town and every road that takes him takes him down, and by himself it's easy to pretend he'll never love again  
_

Terraces of domestic bliss pass away and are replaced by streets of shops and bus stops swimming in broken glass.

I may have walked here before, seen nothing ominous in the stiff mannequins of window displays and huddled beggars even more ragged than me, but I can barely sum up the energy to remember.

I am giddy with adrenalin and lack of sleep and constant, relentless exercise. I know that any sort of showdown with Sirius would now be pointless, one-sided. Nothing new there, then.

But recalling the frailty of Freya's gently clenched fingers, and the little smile on Lily's face as she wiped Harry's mouth, I have a mad, idiotic urge to play the hero. One last time. The first time.

I will die fighting, in full view of the world, and I will be immortalised. Maybe in this will I find solace. Maybe, trying in vain to slaughter the person who has taught me most about life, maybe this is how I make my mark, not valiantly at the hands of cruel Death Eater torturers.

Facing a friend. A friend…more, surely. I have given up analysing our relationship, if it is to die soon.

Poor Remus. He has no real enemies. Even those who pretended to love him, who tolerated his shabby company, find pleasure in wheeling around and casting fire against him.

The world goes white.

I am thrown to the floor by the blast, and there is suddenly, after a hollow second of perfect silence, in which I think _I am dead, write this upon my tombstone – Moony, unloved, _there is screaming, and a pounding of feet, and dust settling on my hair.

I cannot tell whether I am being surged towards the blast or away from it, and I cannot tell which I would prefer. I know what lies at the centre…something hideous, something that I should have been part of. I want to revel in the sight of his body and curse the man who took up the Potters' mantle when it was mine to wear. But I want to escape. There is nothing else to do. There is a whole life to be lived in guilty, cowardly shame.

As the zig-zagging dust clears, and tiny little cuts on the side of my face where I fell begin to pulse with slight pain, it all becomes clear. There are occasional pops as wizards Apparate in droves, turning brandished wands at those nearby, sending them on their way oblivious.

One readies himself to do dreadful magic on me, ready to commit a crime as awful as my own against Freya.

'No! I'm Re-Remus Lupin, I'm in Gryffindor, please…look, my wand, I – I could help, please' – as though I am begging for my life.

He nods and turns to a group of cowering, sobbing Muggles. These are scenes of terror so unimaginable…something Freya might watch on her television, images of far-off disaster now so close at hand…in the High Street, for God's sake.

He is like a print of some mighty prince, standing victorious on a pile of rubble, hands spread out in exultation.

A gentle wind lifts his black hair.

There are just the two of us in the world. Something unnatural, the sounds of panic and desperate attempts to restore calm are muffled, underwater as I look at him, ignoring the wizards creeping tentatively towards him, as though he is a monster.

They are closing in…and I know it is really over now…there will be no _after the war_. These are the last moments of our relationship.

'Sirius!'

My crazed shriek turns heads I barely note.

But his eyes flash upwards and lock with mine, like before in Gryffindor tower with a thick tapestry casting shadows across our faces.

I hope he reads many things in my eyes.

Hatred, perhaps. Surely nothing else could drive me on so long? Love I would have called eternal that is now lying maimed and bleeding somewhere unknown. A final, desperate, inevitable farewell.

I expect little back…a disembodied, alien madness. I cannot say I want anything from him, any longer.

Not…he almost seems to be _apologising _to me. There could be shame in those eyes, eyes that so often have twinkled with fire and mischief, that have ignited everything but apathy in me.

He is dragged away, in slow motion, and the pop as the struggling group disappears is like surfacing from a black pond. I can hear the sounds again in deafening clarity, but I see little.

I am too busy denying what faces me now.

A lifetime.

I am barely a quarter of a century old.

I must surely die in this war. I shall go insane, otherwise.

If not, if through some twist of injustice, I live to be an old man riddled with bitter memories and regrets and solitudes, I will at least have time to ponder my enigmatic friend and this strange farewell.

Laughing, coldly cackling.

But apologising to me, for something I will never truly know.

I am glad that the streets are empty as I walk away. I seem to be doing that a lot in recent times – away from everything that has ever offered me security, or joy.

For the love of God, let it be for the last time now.

_And keeping to himself he plays the game, without her love it always ends the same, while life goes on around him everywhere, he's playing solitaire  
_

AN: so there you have it. Tadaaa. That's it. C'est tout. I fully accept responsibility for the rubbishness of it, I feel any skill I may ever have possessed leaking away...you know what? I'm not even going to waste my energy thinking of an amusing way to beg for reviews. Til next time…dd xxx


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